April Fools
by bookwormgirlLH
Summary: When Tom and Harry play a prank on the Doctor, they think they are creating a bit of harmless fun - but things soon get out of their hands ...
1. April Fools

"Harry?" Tom Paris said as he approached Harry Kim, a mischievous glint in his eyes, "Have you ever heard of April Fool's Day?"

"Oh yeah, it was a tradition on Earth a few centuries ago where people pranked each other. Why?" Harry replied without looking up from his coffee.

"Because I think we should prank someone, Harry!" Tom was clearly excited. He punched his friend's arm playfully, "C'mon, it'll be fun. And a bit of fun is just what Voyager needs at the moment."

"Al right," Harry sighed, but soon found himself getting wrapped up in Tom's excitement. "Who were you thinking of using?"

"I was thinking about the Doctor. "

"What!" Harry cried. "He's the one person on the ship who doesn't have a sense of humour. "

Tom grinned, "I know, so just think how funny his reaction will be."

"What would you do to him - alter his program?" Harry suggested.

"Exactly." Tom chuckled.

The two young officers headed to sick bay, where they were delighted to find that the Doctor's mobile emitter was laying unguarded on his desk.

"operation April Fool begins. " Tom said as he picked up the emitter and smuggled it out of the room.


	2. The Prank

The Doctor sat at his desk, mobile emitter stuck to his arm, staring intently at the screen in front of him. He only recently reactivated, having set a timer on his emitter to reactivate him an hour ago, and was catching up on his work when he heard a rumbling sound. Looking around in confusion, the Doctor heard the sound again, and, glancing down, realised that it was coming from what would have been his stomach, had he had one.

"Computer, is the Emergency Medical Hologram functioning normally?" He asked the computer, giving in to the urge to rub his abdomen as it rumbled again, louder this time.

"The Emergency Medical Hologram is functioning within normal parameters." The computer replied in its feminine, monotonous voice.

"How odd," The Doctor muttered to himself.

"Doctor, report to the bridge." Came Captain Janeway's voice on the com system.

"On my way, Captain. " He replied, grabbing his med-kit and jumping up. As he stood up, the Doctor was shocked to find himself dizzy; he swayed drunkenly for a few seconds until the strange feeling subsided, before hurrying out of sick bay.

The Doctor was soon in the turbolift that would take him straight to the bridge. As he zoomed upwards, the rumblings returned, this time accompanied by stomach pains. The Doctor gasped as the pain increased until he had to fight to not double over - what was happening to him? He had never felt pain before. But when the lift reached the bridge, he took a deep breath and tried to hide it, knowing that someone needed his help.

Walking onto the bridge, the Doctor was met by a wall of smoke. The Captain rushed over.

"Quick, Doctor - Tom's control panel exploded in his face, but he won't go to sick bay. "

He was lead over to Tom Paris, who was slumped in his seat, a burn on his cheek, "Hi, Doc," he said weakly.

Whilst the engineers quickly fixed the control panel, the Doctor was equally speedy at repairing Tom's skin. As the Doctor made to leave the bridge, he was suddenly stricken with agonising stomach cramps that made him cry out in agony, much to the alarm of the bridge crew. Harry and Tom exchanged glances, realising that the Doctor was in real pain, and that their prank had gone wrong.

The Doctor doubled over, face pale and clammy, before vomiting violently all over the floor. Tom and Harry had planned for him to throw up, but didn't shout 'April Fools'; instead, they rushed over and managed to catch him as he collapsed, gently lowering the hologram to the ground.

Tuvok deactivated the Doctor, picking up his mobile emitter as the hologram, and is vomit, disappeared, "I am going to get Seven of Nine to run a diagnostic on his emitter." He said, leaving the bridge with the Captain's permission.

The Captain looked astounded., staring around the room in disbelief. She went to speak, but caught sight of Tom and Harry's guilty expressions, "You two wouldn't know anything about this, would you?"

They both nodded reluctantly.

"Right, both of you - my office now!" Captain Janeway said coldly, and the two young officers followed their Captain into her office, expecting the worst - which they got...


	3. Pain

The doctor felt a rush of nauseating agony as he was reactivated, and was unsurprised to find himself lying on a bio bed in sick bay. Even though he wanted to pain to stop more than anything else, a small part of the doctor's program was pleased that he was being treated like a human at last. But the small optimistic thought soon vanished as the pain increased, and the doctor began to groan, rolling onto his side and tucking his knees up under his chin, hands cradling his painful abdomen in a futile attempt to make it go away. From this position, he could see B'elanna Torres and Seven of Nine running diagnostic after diagnostic on his program, B'elanna getting angry when she couldn't immediately find the cause of the doctor's malfunction.

B'elanna walked over to the doctor, placing her hand on his trembling shoulder, "We're trying as hard as we can to fix the problem, Doc, so hang in there." She said reassuringly, showing the doctor that although she found him irritating, B'elanna did care about the doctor and didn't like seeing him suffer.

"Thank you, Lieutenant." The doctor said weakly, trying to smile.

B'elanna stared at the doctor's pale, clammy face, his trembling muscles and chattering teeth, his pain filled eyes - and her face lit up as a thought entered her mind. "This can't be a malfunction. " she said, turning to face Seven. "The only way the doctor could feel pain is if someone programmed him to - he doesn't have a pain subroutine that could be malfunctioning. "

"Of course," Seven replied. "I shall see if anyone has tampered with the doctor's program." She quickly ran another diagnostic. "Yes, it seems that someone has,"

The doctor looked incredibly nervous - who would want to hurt him like this?- before sticking his head over the side of the bio bed and violently vomiting bright red blood.

"I'd hurry if I were you, Seven, " B'elanna said urgently, rubbing the now sobbing doctor's back. He looked up at her, a pitiful expression on his face, his lips glistening with blood, "He's getting worse."


	4. Irreversible

As the captain got herself a black coffee from the replicator, Tom and Harry stood rigidly in front of her desk, not daring to relax. Harry looked at Tom, who tried to smile reassuringly at his friend, but he too was scared of what was to come - Captain Janeway could be very firm when she needed to be. She took a seat behind her desk, put the coffee down, and stared at the two young officers.

"Now, can you two explain to me what you did to the Doctor and why you thought it was a good idea?" She spoke with none of the kind, friendly tones that Tom and Harry were used to.

"It was a joke, Captain" Tom began.

"A joke?" She interjected, "Did you see how much pain he was in - and he's not even meant to feel pain?"

"We increased the amount of pain the Doctor can feel and added a subroutine that made him feel ill and throw up, but something went wrong." Harry explained, hanging his head with guilt. "We're sorry, Captain."

"It's not me who needs an apology," Captian Janeway said, "You need to say sorry to the Doctor." She gulped down her coffee and stood up. "Come with me."

"Where are we going?" Harry asked fearfully, expecting to be thrown in the brig.

"We're going down to sick bay so you can tell B'elanna and Seven what you did, so they can reverse it and make the Doctor better - and we'll talk about your punishment later."

Looking slightly relived, Harry, and Tom, followed the captain out of her ready room and down to sick bay.

As they walked through the doorway, Tom and Harry were horrified to see the Doctor's appearance: his deathly pale face was shiny with sweat, but his lips were stained dark red with congealed blood; he was hunched forward, arms wrapped around his stomach, but his head was leaning weakly on B'elanna's shoulder, who was rubbing his back; he was shivering violently; but worst of all, which made Tom feel truly dreadful, was that tears were trickling down his cheeks.

"Oh, Doc, I'm so sorry." Tom whispered, gently touching the Doctor's shoulder.

The Doctor looked at him. "Did you do this to me?" He said weakly, voice wavering.

Tom nodded, and felt a tug at his heart as the Doctor pulled away from him, looking scared.

"It was me too." Harry added, not wanting the Doctor to just blame Tom.

"Do you two know how to reverse what you did - whenever we try, we can't decode it." Seven asked.

"Wait, you did this?!" B'elanna shouted at her husband, "Why did you do such a stupid thing?"

"It was a joke, apparently." The captain explained, shrugging her shoulders at B'lanna to show her that she didn't understand it either.

Tom, trying to ignore his wife, along with Harry, went to the control panel and tried to remove the subroutine.

"It's not working, Captain, we can't delete the subroutine - it must have embedded itself deep into the Doc's matrix." Harry said, unable to look at her as he spoke.

"What if we try this?" Tom suggested, typing hurriedly. As he did so, the Doctor cried out in agony, threw up violently and doubled over, the pain getting much worse.

"Sorry, sorry." Tom mumbled apologetically, undoing what he had just tried. The Doctor relaxed, but still looked agonised, and was unable to stop crying.

Finally, after hours of trying to cure the Doctor, Tom, Harry, B'elanna and Seven finally managed to remove the subroutine, and the Doctor sat up, looking completely healthy again, although he was still weeping.

"Why am I still crying, I thought you restored my program?" He asked, wiping his eyes.

Tom took a deep breath, "Well... you see Doc, although we removed the illness subroutine, we can't restore your heightened pain and emotion subroutines back to the way they were, I'm sorry."

The Doctor looked deliriously angry, but the captain spoke to stop him yelling at Tom, "Okay, you two, you've mostly fixed the Doctor, so now you have to be punished." They both sighed, but once again followed their captain out of sick bay.

The Doctor turned to face B'elanna, "So am I stuck with my emotions this sensitive forever?" He asked, his fury quickly turning to anxiety.

B'elanna paused, before responding, "I'm afraid so, Doc."

"Brilliant!" He said sarcastically, turning away as tears, once again, began to pour down his face. "Brilliant..."


	5. Flatlining

"What are you doing here?" the Doctor asked, shocked, as Tom entered sick bay, looking irritated. "This isn't your shift."

"I know, this is my punishment." Tom replied gloomily. The Doctor didn't need to ask what the punishment was for. "Well," Tom paused. "What do you want me to do?"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows at the lack of enthusiasm in Tom's voice, but didn't pursue it, "Can you refill all the hyposprays?"

"Yes, Doc." The Doctor looked back down at the report Tom had given him earlier, frowning slightly; the report had been rushed, and was full of typos. He was about to complain, when he heard Captain Janeway's voice on the com system,

"Doctor, we've found a heavily damaged ship, so as soon as we can transport them, expect to receive five casualties."

"OK, Captain." The Doctor tapped his badge, cutting off the communications. He couldn't stop the anxiety that began to pulse through his matrix, hating being so emotional. "Mr Paris, we need to prepare for multiple casualties."

Tom heard the nervous twinge to the Doctor's voice. "You'll do fine, Doc. After all, you've said yourself that you're the best Doctor in the galaxy." He said supportively, and the Doctor smiled weakly.

The smile vanished as five aliens materialised, four on bio beds and one on the floor, who the Doctor identified immediately as Talaxians. He and Tom began to scan each of the casualties to find out who needed to be treated first.

"So we have three with fractured limbs, one with burns and one with a head wound." Tom summarised, and the pair of them grabbed their equipment, heading straight to the unconscious, male Talaxian, whose head was bleeding heavily. As Tom handed the Doctor whatever he needed, the Doctor tried to stem the blood flow, but nothing seemed to work, and he grew increasingly stressed as the patient's heart rate slowed from 120 beats per minute to just 50.

"Come on." He muttered desperately, fingers trembling, listening on horror to the ECG, which was now bleeping only 40 times a minute. The Doctor frowned heavily, focusing only on the haemorrhage, which wouldn't stop, no matter what he tried.

Tom sighed heavily as the ECG let out a monotonous, long bleep, and its monitor showed a large zero. "Doc?" He said softly, but got no reply, "Doc!" Tom shook the Doctor's shoulder, and he finally looked up. "He's gone, Doc."

The Doctor's face fell as he heard the ECG flat lining. "No, no." He cried, and he began to pound the man's chest, breathing heavily, knowing he was being irrational, but unable to stop.

"DOC!" Tom shouted, grabbing the Doctor by the wrists. "He's dead. There's nothing you can do. I'm sorry."

The Doctor took deep, ragged breaths, tears spilling down his face. "What did I do wrong?" He sobbed.

"Look, Doc, his head injury was too serious. No one could have done anything more." Tom patted the Doctor's arm sympathetically, as the hologram hid his face in his hands.

"I just wish I could have saved him." The Doctor whimpered through his fingers, but he breathed deeply and hastily wiped his eyes. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant."

"It's alright, Doc, it's not your fault." Tom mentally added _its mine_ but he knew that the Doctor thought it too.

They both went back to the other patients, and quickly healed their injuries. The Doctor was just repairing a broken femur when the Captain entered sick bay. She looked at the Doctor's tear-stained face, but didn't mention it, knowing that the Doctor couldn't help it.

The Doctor saw her inquisitive expression. "These four are fine, Captain, but he-" He nodded towards the bio bed behind him, "had a severe brain haemorrhage, and died." The Doctor's voice cracked, and he swallowed hard, "If you'll excuse me, Captain, you can speak to my patients now." He hurried into his office, where he put his head on the desk and sobbed silently, still unable to believe his patient had died, and wishing that he could stop getting so upset over everything that went wrong.


End file.
